Description:

Hugh Hefner
n.p., n.d.
Hugh Hefner Playboy Cartoon Book, Signed - He was a Cartoonist, too!
Signed book

A colorful oversized volume, Playboy: 50 Years The Cartoons (San Francisco: Chronicle, 2004). 368pp. Folio (9.5" x 12.5"). With an introduction by Hugh Hefner. Boldly signed on the half title page and appears unread. Very light bumping to head of spine, else very good.

Hugh Hefner (1926-2017) was an important cultural icon of the 20th century. As the founder and publisher of Playboy magazine, Hefner played a pivotal role in the sexual revolution of the 1960s to 1980s. He is also largely unacknowledged as a cartoonist.

After his discharge from the Army in April 1946, Hefner earned a bachelor's degree in psychology with a double minor in creative writing and art from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. After college, Hefner worked as a cartoonist but failed to sell any of his ideas for a comic strip. In 1951 he published his first book of satirical cartoons about Chicago: "That Toddlin' Town: A Rowdy Burlesque of Chicago Manners and Morals." In the summer of 1953, he raised $8,000 from friends and family and produced the first issue of "Playboy" in his apartment, which featured a 1949 calendar shoot of photographs of Marilyn Monroe, and the rest is history.

By the end of the 1950s "Playboy" was selling over a million copies per month, and the magazine played an important role in the sexual revolution of the 1960s up through the 1980s. Celebrated for its female models, short stories, and interviews, each issue of "Playboy" also featured cartoons.

Hefner used the magazine to promote his "Playboy Philosophy", a lifestyle that he embodied after his 1959 divorce and articulated in a series of articles in "Playboy" from 1962 to 1965. Among its components, the "Playboy Philosophy" called for political goals such as free speech, civil rights, the separation of church and state, free-enterprise capitalism, and individualism. Hefner also advocated support for birth control and abortion rights.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 9.5" x 12.5"
  • Medium: Signed book

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April 23, 2025 10:00 AM EDT
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